The Sense of Smell 



evitable uneasiness due to the incidents of 

 their exhumation, transport and confinement 

 in an unknown place. My exiles from home 

 try to escape, climb up the wire, burrow right 

 at the edge of the enclosure. Night falls and 

 things grow calmer. Two hours later, I come 

 to take a last look at them. Three are still 

 buried under a thin layer of sand. The five 

 others have each dug a perpendicular shaft at 

 the very foot of the straws which tell me 

 where the fungi lie. Next morning, the sixth 

 straw has its well like the others. 



This is the moment to see what is hap- 

 pening underground. I remove the sand me- 

 thodically in vertical slices. At the bottom of 

 each burrow is a Bolboceras eating his truffle, 

 the hydnocystis. 



Let us repeat the experiment with the 

 partly-consumed victuals. The result is the 

 same. At one brief, nocturnal spell of work, 

 the dainty is discovered underground and 

 reached by means of a gallery which runs 

 plumb to the spot where the morsel lies. 

 There is no hesitation, no trial excavation 

 guided by guesswork. This is proved by the 

 surface of the soil, which everywhere is just 

 as I left it when I smoothed it down. The 



